Anesthesia
There have been many advances in dentistry recently, but unfortunately the method for giving anesthesia is not one of them. Many attempts have been made to try and replace the dreaded needle and syringe. Nobody has quite succeeded.
Electronic Anesthesia
Electronics anesthesia units have been around for a while and they work to a certain extent. By transmitting electrical impulses through pads placed at certain points on the jaw the nerve imlpuses can be blocked to provide anesthesia. The intensity can be adjusted as needed by the patients during the procedure. Unfortunately this only works effectively on some people and can only be used in certain places on the jaw.
Anesthetic Patch
The anesthetic patch has recently been released and provides soft tissue (gum) anesthesia to the area it is placed. The patch will not provide anesthesia for the tooth, it will provide sufficient numbness for deep cleanings and for comfortable insertion of the needle. Topical anesthetic will do the same thing as the patch when left in contact with the gums long enough.
Patch
The Wand
The Wand is a device that has been just recently released. It claims to provide a painless and fear free injection that does not use the regular syringe. This gadget is just a fancy syringe that uses the same needle as the regular syringe. All this device does is warm the anesthetic solution, slowly injects and looks fancy.Wand
Good Injection
If you have a good dentist who has good injection techniques all these things above are not needed. A good injection: topical anesthetic is placed on the site 2-5 minutes before, anesthetic solution is warmed, injection is slowly given with a 30 gauge needle and the patient is distracted by moving the lip while injecting. It's usually the perception that it will hurt or the fear of the needle that causes someone to fear getting the injection. Most of the time the injections do not really hurt, it is just that the patient is so fearfull they think it hurts.
